[NYTr] Cuba: Another Elian? Custody Fight Gears Up

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

AP - Aug 26, 2007
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CUBAN_CHILD_CUSTODY?SITE=KPUA&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Another Elian? Custody Fight Gears Up

By LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ
Associated Press Writer

MIAMI (AP) -- A Cuban father allowed his young daughter to emigrate
legally to the United States with her mother to find a better life. But
months later, the mother has become incapable of caring for the girl
and the father wants to take the child home.

It would seem a simple case, especially since the mother agrees her
daughter should return to Cuba.

Yet on the eve of the trial, a judge has warned that it could "inflame
the community," where the battle over Elian Gonzalez nearly eight years
ago divided the city and became an international incident.

Testimony is to begin Monday over whether 32-year-old Cuban farmer
Rafael Izquierdo can regain custody of his 4-year-old daughter - whose
name is being kept secret - or whether she should remain with a wealthy
Cuban-American and his wife who want to adopt her.

Until now, unlike Elian's case, this custody battle has moved quietly
through family court.

But on Thursday, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jerri B. Cohen reluctantly
lifted a gag order at the request of the girl's foster father, Joe
Cubas, 46, a former sports agent who has represented the New York Mets'
Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez and several other ballplayers who defected
from Cuba. Cubas said he asked that it be lifted because he said he was
getting many questions about the case.

The judge warned that allowing the parties to speak to the media "could
have the possibility to inflame the community."

"It's going to explode," Cohen said. "I know that as sure as I sit
here. I can't prevent that."

Still, civic leaders, many of whom fought hard to keep Elian from
returning to Cuba, say they don't believe this case will spark similar
reactions. The facts are different and neither the U.S. government nor
the Cuban-exile community, burned by its negative portrayal during the
Elian case, have a desire to repeat the past.

Elian, then 5, was found floating at sea on an inner tube on
Thanksgiving Day 1999, after his mother drowned with others attempting
to defect to the U.S. The boy's Miami relatives and many Cuban exiles
insisted that Elian remain in this country, but immigration officials
ruled in favor of his father, who wanted him returned to Cuba. A
standoff ended only when armed federal agents raided the Little Havana
home of Elian's uncle to seize the boy and send him to Cuba.

In the current case, both parents are in Miami and have agreed to
participate in the U.S. legal system - and both say the girl should go
with her father.

"The reaction in the community has been incredibly mature up to this
point, and I'm sure it will remain this way," said Carlos Saladrigas,
head of the Cuba Study Group, a nonpartisan group of business and civic
leaders formed after the Elian case to promote democracy in Cuba
through moderate channels.

The case began in 2004 when the girl's mother, Elena Perez, won the
visa lottery to come to the U.S. with her son and daughter, each of
whom has a different father. Both fathers agreed to let their children
go with her.

But after Perez was hospitalized in December 2005 following a suicide
attempt, the children were put in foster care and ended up with the
Cubas family. Perez agreed to let them adopt her son, now 13, but not
her daughter.

Izquierdo said he wants to take his daughter back to his family home in
the central Cuban village of Cabaiguan, where he and his wife have a
7-year-old daughter.

"Her room is ready with and her bed and her little toys," he said
Thursday.

Perez agrees. "Now that she's not going to her mother, she should go to
her father," she said of her daughter. "Those are the two best people
in the world to be at the side of a child."

An independent guardian appointed for the girl favors leaving her girl
with Cubas. Several top attorneys for the Florida Department of
Children & Families also appear to favor Cubas.

Cubas said the girl, who calls him "Papi," shouldn't be separated from
her brother and doesn't want to go back to Cuba.

"I don't believe this is a matter of where their better life could be
provided," he said. "It is our belief, as is the wishes of the
children, that they remain together and that's why we're here."

Cubas drew critics in the late 1990s who said he helped top Cuba ball
players leave the island. In 2005, his sports agent certification was
suspended following accusations by one defector that Cubas took his
immigration documents and refused to return them. He has denied the
allegations.

Perez and Saladrigas said the community's fear in both the Elian case
and this one was that the fathers had been pressured to bring their
children back by the Castro government.

"The concern is whether they are speaking from their heart or being
coerced, and there is no clear answer to that. You will never know,"
Saladrigas said. "If it wouldn't be for that it would be a no-brainer."

© 2007 The Associated Press.